My name is Beowulf and I’m a 13-year-old eighth grader at Teach Northwest. I have three siblings, one older and two younger. I love logic puzzles, playing games with my family, writing with my mom, and skiing on Mount Hood with my dad and siblings. I was born on March 25, 2012, and lived on Sauvie Island until I turned two, when we moved into a new house with my paternal grandparents. 

My main passion is playing chess. I’ve been playing since I was four-years-old, after being taught by my late grandmother. She was the instructor for a chess club at the high school she worked at in Santa Monica, CA. At around seven-years-old, I began taking online chess classes and quickly became enthralled by the complex strategies and logic required. When I turned eight, I met a chess instructor who would end up being the reason I am now so deeply involved in the community. Through him, I learned about chess tournaments, and quickly jumped on the opportunity to play chess competitively. Even though I no longer take lessons from him, I still regularly compete in tournaments and have grown quite fond of the chess community in Portland.

While chess is my favorite pastime, I also try to make time for other hobbies. When I was 6 years old, my interest for creative writing was sparked, and I started writing my first book. At that age, I didn’t fully understand what it took to write, edit, and publish a book, but my passion for writing stuck with me. At 11-years-old, I decided to give novel writing another chance. This sparked my years-long journey of carefully creating and sculpting my own fictional universe, continuing to write and edit each page of my novel to be exactly how I wanted it. I’m still writing scenes in my novel daily, with the goal of getting it published before I graduate high school.

Another hobby of mine is speedcubing. When I discovered Rubik’s Cubes for the first time at age eight, they seemed like an insurmountable puzzle that only the most elite geniuses could solve. However, when I picked one up for the second time, I decided to learn how to master it. Through determination and a lot of YouTube tutorials, I learned to solve not only the basic 3x3, but other variations of the original puzzle as well. While I haven’t competed in any cubing competitions, I strive to get faster at solving Rubik’s Cubes, with my current best time being 19.38 seconds. 

While I do enjoy many more logical and mental-based pastimes, I make time for physical activities as well. Two days a week, I go to a Korean martial arts studio in downtown Portland and train in hapkido. I’ve found mental work is also heavily required in martial arts, which initially took me by surprise. In addition to hapkido, I participate in a seasonal track and field program. My favorite distances are 200 and 400 meters and my best 400-meter time is 1:15 seconds, which I ran in a summer camp around the beginning of June.

One of the more educational things I enjoy is programming. I tried taking a coding class over the summer of 2021, and loved the logical thought process required. I mostly code in Python, but I also know some Javascript, HTML, and C++. In 2022, I discovered the Raspberry Pi, a programming tool that allows you to use your codes to activate circuits on breadboards. This was the first time I used circuitry, which has inspired my future career path.

While I do spend time enjoying my hobbies and improving at them, I’ve put a lot of thought into my career plan going forward and what path would benefit me the most. Because of my enjoyment for debate, engineering, and computer science, I’ve decided to become a lawyer. I plan to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering (probably computer engineering, but I have yet to decide) and my graduate degree in law. Once I’m done with college, I will practice a type of law involving engineering, like patent law or AI regulation.